i think the line of demarcation is 39th street when it becomes impossible to get a seltzer. nobody downtown with get a call going out. a lot of them are moving uptown. "morning joe" starts right now. ♪ i can't help it ♪ i wonder what's going on this is a tough time for a lot of people, millions of folks all across the eastern seaboard. but america's tougher, and we're tougher because we pull together, we leave nobody behind. we make sure that we respond as a nation and remind ourselves that whenever an american is in

need, all of us stand together to make sure that we're providing the help that's necessary. >> good morning. it's wednesday, october 31st. welcome to "morning joe." with us on set, we have msnbc and "time" senior political analyst, mark halperin. and national affairs editor for "new york" magazine, john heilemann. willie is coming in the room right now. >> willie sort of sauntering in. >> he is. wow! got a lot of presidential polls to get to, and we will. >> i tell you what, important ones that really narrow the focus of this race. >> right. first we're going to start with the aftermath of sandy. the united states pledging quick relief for the millions of victims of the hurricanes. today president obama is scheduling to arrive in atlantic city to survey the damage alongside governor chris christie. this morning the associated press reports the storm killed at least 50 people. there are more than 8.2 million

households still without power across 17 states. and many of the outages could last beyond election day. between damage to property and the economy, the total impact expected to reach a staggering $50 billion. the damage is perhaps nowhere worse than the coastline of new jersey where sandy came ashore laying waste to an amusement park and historic boardwalk at seaside heights. as for the airports, jfk, newark, they're expected to resume limited service this morning. the same cannot be said for laguardia. jetblue posted these photos of the runways submerged. more than 18,000 flights have already been canceled as a result of sandy. and police had to take to the air to save victims from rooftops in staten island after floodwaters surrounded their homes. they were loaded one by one into baskets before being hoisted to safety. now let's go to breezy point. a neighborhood of queens which looks like a war zone after a

fire devastated the small community. absolutely devastated it. more than 100 homes were destroyed. officials say the high winds from the storm pushed the flames from one building to the next. amazingly, no serious injuries reported there. but high god, look at that neighborhood. it is completely gone. everything is gone. the devastation there. it's a neighborhood, as we saw on the news last night, made up mostly of firefighters and police officers who live there. which kind of makes it in some ways more painful. >> i talked to one of my friends at the fdny fighting the fire who talked about standing back. >> there was no way. >> they were literally watching their own home, the fire would jump from home to home to home. and there was nothing they could do about it. they couldn't get close enough to fight it. they had to stand and watch their own neighborhood burn to the ground. >> it's so sad. it's so sad. it's amazing nobody was injured out there. >> nobody.

>> i was sure somebody would have been caught in those flames. amazing. >> well, you know, a lot of these neighborhoods were evacuated, obviously. and there were those who didn't. and there were a lot of problems caused by that as well. and then a lot of freak deaths. i mean, people just -- sometimes people doing the right things and getting caught in the path of the wrong thing. >> yeah. it's sad. >> horrible. a lot to talk about there. we'll be covering the aftermath and the information as it comes in. we also are just days away from a presidential election. and there will be some impact there to the logistics of it. we've got six days until election day. the focus is still on critical swing states. polling from cbs news, "the new york times" and quinnipiac shows the president up by five points in ohio. that is unchanged from two weeks ago. in florida, just a single point separates the two candidates. the president had a nine-point lead in september. it's a similar story in virginia where mitt romney has closed the president's lead to within two points.

are you really going to slurp your coffee? yes, you are. okay. when it comes to -- >> brutal. >> john heilemann. >> he isn't slurping his coffee. >> i just wondered. you're like my dad. he does that. >> when it comes to early voting, the president's ahead in both ohio and virginia. i tell you what, the economic outlook's a big reason why barack obama's maintaining this five-point lead. look at the same quinnipiac poll, these internals are brutal for mitt romney. any way you slice it. unless you believe that quinnipiac, one of the most accurate polling that's out there is cooking the books. and if you do, change channels because you're listening to the wrong channel. >> yes. there's that. >> so there's the internals of this poll show that 52% of the people in ohio think the economy is getting better. 47% think the economy is staying the same or getting worse. and when asked who cares more about people like them, president obama leads mitt romney by almost 18 points.

john heilemann, if it's ohio, ohio, ohio and the president's maintaining a five-point lead and he's ahead 2-1 in early voting in ohio based on this poll, if you assume that the people at quinnipiac are not in the tank for barack obama and are not sniffing glue and none of us at this table believe that because, again, four years ago and two years ago, quinnipiac was really one of the most accurate polls. >> yeah. >> then this is a firewall that is going to be hard for mitt romney to get past. >> it's sure starting to look like that and has for a while. we've seen a lot of polling, and there's been some variance on this. i don't think there's been a poll that's had romney closer than two in ohio. there was one ohio poll -- >> this weekend. >> i forgot about that momentarily. but mostly what we've seen over the last months and acutely over

the last couple weeks is a lot of polling that has obama three to five points ahead. and the internals that look a lot like this. and you know, we've discussed it ad nauseam why that is and what the effect of the auto bailout is and the fact that the unemployment rate there is way below the national average. people have a sense of economic optimism in the state. >> right. we're less than a week out. he's maintaining a five-point lead not only in this poll. he has a five-point lead in the nbc news/"wall street journal" poll, one of the more accurate polls, at some point romney's people telling you and me and everybody else oh, don't believe the media polls. they've got all of the figures wrong. our internals show we're tied. at some point, that just doesn't wash. they've got to win michigan or pennsylvania or minnesota. >> i think that's right. and look, you look at the way they're behaving in ohio with the ads they've put on, this whole thing about chrysler and jeep. they're behaving -- there's an

element of apparent desperation on their part. they seem to be throwing a lot of stuff at the wall in ohio which suggests a certain amount of if not desperation, they have a sense that they're losing there. >> mark, you look at the quinnipiac poll this morning, and you see it's still a five-point lead. we've got less than a week till the election. you look at the internals. over 50% of the people there think that in ohio, the economy's getting better. i'm underlining this. because i'm not saying mitt romney can't win. but if you take ohio off the table for mitt romney and it's really close, it's really, really close to being off the table for mitt romney unless there is some massive reaganlike landslide the last week, then suddenly mitt romney's pathway to 270 gets very, very narrow. he's got to run the board or he's got to expand the map. >> and don't forget virginia which also, according to most of the recent polling data, is not at all a sure thing for the president, for mitt romney.

and florida where governor romney's spending the day. the last 48 hours have seen a lot of the narrative move towards romney is in a commanding position particularly because we've seen advertising go on in pennsylvania and michigan and minnesota and surrogate visits. if governor romney can't find a way to win ohio, he's got a very hard path, and he still has to lock down these southern states. i think you're right. the romney people say they're in a much better position in ohio than these public polls show. if they're wrong about that, he's not going to win. >> every public media poll, willie, has to be cooking their books for barack obama. >> or assuming the electorate. >> or assuming the electorate's wrong. and if the electorate has changed so radically in two years that quinnipiac is confused, somebody will give a desser tags on it after the election. i'm frustrated this morning

because they keep telling me, don't believe the media polls. here we are a week out, less than a week out. it's still five points in ohio. i can tell you as a practicing politician, if you're down five points a week out and you were down five points two weeks out, your problem. >> and obama at 50, not at 47%. >> and obama is at 50% in ohio, willie. >> one other note inside that "new york times" poll, conventional wisdom is obama would struggle with white working-class voters in ohio anyway, not in virginia. but in ohio he's even with romney among white voters who do not have a college degree. that's very important. >> and by the way, i think he's up, what, 30% in florida? >> 30. >> he's up 30 points, willie, in florida among white voters. but in ohio, he's dead even. >> dead even. florida and virginia. >> and virginia. >> 30 points. >> think about how much of the negative bain advertising took place this summer you still see it in the numbers, doesn't care

about people like me. romney's numbers are still upside down. people say governor romney doesn't care about people like them. that is still the result of a summer of pummeling in ohio by the obama campaign and the democratic super pacs which worked ohio harder, knowing that the state could be a firewall, knowing that they could hold the electoral map and take ahold of ohio. they hit him harder there than anywhe anywhere. you still see that in the internals in terms of romney's image in that state. >> i said they have to run the table if they lose ohio or expand the map. one area where romney's people are talking aboutpanding the map, michigan. >> a new poll finds mitt romney is closing in on president obama's once-comfortable lead in that state. "the detroit news"/local 4 poll found among likely voters, the race has tightened to be within the margin of error.

earlier this month romney was trailing president obama by approximately six percentage points. and with signs that michigan is once again in play, the pro-romney super pac restore our future launched a $2.2 million ad, and the obama campaign is countering with its first network tv ads in michigan. the ads are expected to begin airing today and will run through election day. >> so mark halperin, michigan. i'm sorry. >> go ahead. >> michigan. that's a good poll, right? >> it is. >> michigan's in play now. >> i mean, if you look -- if you think that the quinnipiac poll is right about ohio, then the obama explanation of why they're going into these states is more credible. >> these states being michigan and pennsylvania. >> which is not oh, my god, the sky is falling, we're losing everywhere, we need to play a lot of defense, but rather, you know, they can't win ohio, so they're looking for another

place. so we've got enough money to make sure that nothing goes wrong. the president's not going to win these battleground states by the same margins he won last time. there's some natural tightening. most of these states elected republican governors two years ago. >> two years ago. >> and so the president would be happy winning these states by two or three points. >> michigan, 2 1/2 points. this is one of these states that we republicans stopped expecting to win when ronald reagan retired. you usually put it in the pennsylvania category. do you believe mitt romney's within the margin of error in michigan? >> i tend to think -- i tend to give the benefit of the doubt to good polls. >> that's a good poll. >> that is a fine poll. i'm interested to see when governor romney or congressman ryan makes a trip to michigan. and that will tell you that they actually believe that there's a chance of winning michigan. as of right now, i think ann romney's been in michigan recently, but watch the travel schedules. right now, as mark pointed out before, governor romney is in

florida today, three stops in florida. we saw the tightening in north carolina, too. this map's getting complicated in a lot of ways. but watch the travel schedules of these guys, and you'll see the extent to which they think that's a place they could actually pick up. >> friday through the end, governor romney's campaign is doing a huge surrogate thing to try to counteract bill clinton to some extent who's a super surrogate all by himself. mccain, rubio. >> who do they have? meatlo meatloaf. >> meatloaf, kid rock. some of that fanning out will be to pennsylvania and michigan with some pretty major surrogates, maybe not the candidates themselves. >> so the battle continues over which candidate, of course, in michigan and ohio, a bigger champion of the auto industry. a lifeblood of many ohio towns. with mitt romney's campaign running a radio ad, accusing president obama of allowing manufacturing jobs to be shipped overseas. the ad says under president obama, gm cut 15,000 jobs and

planning to double the number of cars built in china. and the ad said chrysler also plans to start making jeeps in china. but a general motors spokesman told "the detroit free press," quote, we've clearly entered some parallel universe during these last few days. no amount of campaign politics at its cynical worst will diminish our record of creating jobs in the u.s. and repatriating profits back into this country. okay. >> willie, what do you think of cargate? >> cargate. they shouldn't lie. >> i think it's subjectively untrue. the ad. i think that pretty much ends it, right? it's false. no? >> what romney said on the stump was false. the ad is true. >> right. >> it's misleading, but it's true. >> explain what you mean. >> i'm sorry. what? >> production in the u.s. that exists. they're making jeeps in the u.s., selling them in the u.s. they're talking about making jeeps to sell in china in china. romney initially suggested on

the stump, wrongly, that they were going to move all jeep production to china, including selling -- building them in china, selling them back in the u.s. that would be bad for american workers. >> bad. >> what the ad refers to is the fact that rather than making jeeps in the u.s. and shipping them to china, they're thinking of making jeeps in china to sell in china. >> the suggestion of the ad, the implication of the ad is blatantly false. >> hasn't gm been doing that for years? >> as every multinational car company does. you go to the countries where you sell the cars and you make them there. just like toyota. it's like their ad is basically suggesting that we're against globalization, against multinational firms in america doing business abroad. >> oh, my god. just to be accurate also, you just juan to add in that like companies like ford are now exporting. and it's helping us. >> it would be better for american workers if we built jeeps in the u.s. and sold them

to china. there would be more american jobs. >> not necessarily. a company might be less profitable then. >> it might. >> the reason that gm does this is because it makes more money by producing jeeps in china for china. as it says, repatriating profits and using that money to invest in american jobs. that's how globalization works. >> by the way, i can't believe this morning that you are such a globalist. >> you really are. >> you also make deals with china. you say, you know, they'll say we'll buy "x" number of cars, and you build those cars in our country. and if i'm not mistaken, some american companies, you know, some american companies will do the same thing here, too. i don't know. i think it does point to possibly desperation. >> yes. >> do we think? in ohio? >> maybe that's just the way they are. >> trying to win. >> any way possible.

>> looks desperate to me. >> so let's talk about nationally a new poll that's out released by "the new york times." >> the poll shows a virtual dead heat between the two candidates. obama leads romney by just one point, 48%-47% among likely voters nationwide. president obama still holds a comfortable lead among women, and mitt romney enjoys an almost identical advantage with men. among independent voters, romney now enjoys a 12-point lead, 51%-39%. >> why is that? john heilemann, why is the president losing independent voters by double digits? what's inside that number? i mean, it's been breaking that way. is it obamacare? what is it? what is it? >> the stats are where the swing is. independent voters -- there's a question about independent voters and the extent to which at any given set of independent voters, where they lean.

there's no question that independent voters right now, as currently constitute in the elect ral, are more democratic leaning than republican leaning. there are people who are undecided. that's where the swing in the electorate it is. it is surprising to me. if it's problematic for president obama, to be in the position he is in. in fact, if you look at the previous number, the gender gap is not as large as many people thought. >> can we get to romney's numbers again? >> the reason romney is competitive at a national level, he's winning independents at that level. his performance with women is actually pretty good. >> let's look at the gender gaps because john brings up a really good point. the gender gap among women is tighter than usual. for republicans and democrats. and then with independents, mark halperin, you had independents going democratic by 16 points in '06. you had them going democratic in '08.

it's hard for the president to be the candidate of change and bipartisanship moving forward with independents breaking away from him the way they are. this is looking a lot more like a karl rove 2004 election than a barack obama 2008 election. >> and even in the michigan quinnipiac poll that shows the president leading substantially, he's losing independents. and that is the strongest argument the romney campaign will make against all these polls that show the president up, which is you may be oversampling democrats to some extent in some of these polls. if romney is winning independents in ohio, if romney's winning independents in ohio, they think he's going to win. >> so why would pollsters -- and this is an important question, the romney people say they're oversampling democrats. and we've seen some of these polls, depths plus nine, plus eight, plus seven, why would -- because obviously, the

pollster's credibility is on the line. this is how they make their living. this is like buying a car whose doors fall off. people feed their children based on the accuracy of their polls. so why would they skew the sample overly democratic? >> because that's what's coming back in their survey. >> the pollsters don't start with a set idea of what the electorate's going to look like and impose that on their sample. if you think a sample comes back as democrats plus nine, the pollster doesn't go and mess with the numbers to get it to be the right distribution of partisan i.d. that they want. some pollsters do that waiting, very, very few and very, very few credible ones do that. they would say this is what the electorate's telling us. you might not like it, but that's what it's telling us. democrats plus six or eight. that's what they're getting from their surveys. >> most ohio elections are won

by the candidate who wins independents. >> and romney's winning independents. >> according to most polls including this latest one. >> a quick look at the enthusiasm gap could be a problem for the president. 68% of romney supporters indicating they're very enthusiastic about voting versus 59% of obama voters saying the same thing. >> so willie, again, we show an ohio poll that shows the president solidly ahead. and then we show polls that show independents breaking strongly for romney, and romney voters being a lot more -- a lot more enthusiastic about the candidate. >> and one other note in the state of ohio, only 4% undecided. only 4% undecided voters and 3% in virginia and florida. i don't know how much movement there's going to be late. if there's only 4% of the people who have said i don't know yet. if the president has a four-point lead, a five-point lead, whatever the latest poll is telling you, romney doesn't have a lot of room to move

within those numbers. coming up, we'll talk to senior adviser to the obama campaign, david axelrod. nbc's tom brokaw. nbc news political director, chuck todd. and "the daily show" co-creator lizle did lizz winstead. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. ♪ ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] some day, your life will flash before your eyes. ♪ make it worth watching. ♪ the new 2013 lexus ls. an entirely new pursuit.

26 past the hour. joe, you need to sit down. >> okay. >> all right? time now to take a look at the "morning papers." "the wall street journal," the new york stock exchange and nasdaq reopen after being shuttered for two days because of sandy's impact. even though much of the area around the financial district is without power, wall street analysts feared another day without business would have meant a damaging backup of customer stock orders, the economic toll alone from the storm is expected to reach $16 billion. >> there's a shot of louis's.

>> oh, my god. >> and also some of the good news from wall street, willie. brian sullivan was kept off the premises for the past 48, 72 hours. >> a silver lining. >> there are silver linings to every storm. "the san francisco chronicle," this is really big news. >> yes, it is. >> for nerds like me. disney's magical kingdom is expanding to include george lucas's empire. lucasfilm, the surprise deal worth $4 billion in cash and stock underscore s the growing relationship between hollywood and silicon valley. it means disney is going to release -- and this is what i'm excited about -- a seventh "star wars" film in 2015. speaking of silver linings, maybe, just maybe, george lucas won't write the next one. god bless george lucas for all he's done because my kids and i, we love -- you know, we love all the "star wars" stuff. it's not a coincidence that "the

empire strikes back," not written by george lucas, was the best "star wars." >> he lost me on the last three with the jar jar binks. there are going to be three more movies. it's great. >> seriously, you've got to be a "star wars." >> obi wan kenobi. >> it's great stuff. "the empire strikes back," your favorite? >> no question. >> no question. >> the first one? really? you are so 1977. what about you? >> "empire." you've got to love it when yoda arrives. although the third one when the eewoks showed up. >> you've never seen any of them. >> i walked out of one of them. i don't remember which one. it was 20 minutes of hell. >> really? >> awful. >> "star wars"? >> the one with the girl with the ears.

princess leia. >> you know the expression of being in a "star wars" bar means? >> no. i remember sitting there thinking, what is going on? this is just unbelievably stupid. >> it could have been "space balls" you were watching. >> i just got up and walked out quietly. in awe of the people. >> the second one. when they bring yoda in. >> yoda, man. yoda. >> that is an untapped gift you have. >> could we please do politico? >> i was trying to explain to mika. all you have to do is just chop the sentence in half and start halfway through and you're yoda. >> you've got to look back. >> it's going to be exciting. 2015. >> and it picks it up after "return of the jedi." now we can resume where we were before the jar jar binks moment. the question, do you have carrie

fisher come back? >> hamil. hamil, line one. >> you know, yeah. if they write him a good script, it will work. >> the most idiotic thing ever created. >> you know who needs to create it? christopher nolan. come on. >> you know what's the inspiration? we're about to get the best "bond" ever, apparently. >> really? >> according to buzz, the best "bond" ever. >> "skyfall." >> casino royale. my dad is the biggest bond fan ever. i tell what you, "casino royale." >> you're saying daniel craig is a better bond than sean connery? >> no, the film. >> nobody's better than sean connery. >> i kind of twisted my head there a little bit. >> come on. >> i have seen a good movie lately, it's "argo." i will be going to see the new

"lincoln." >> we haven't even talked about season two of "homeland." dear lord. >> i haven't started yet. i'm just catching up. i just got showtime a week ago. >> the second season, mind blowing. >> willie, welcome to the modern world. you finally got table? >> i got the showtime package. let's go to "politico," shall we? >> yeah, hurry. >> jim, your favorite "star wars" film, please. >> it's definitely "empire strikes back." i'm chind ofkind of a chewie gu. >> who isn't? >> new jersey governor chris christie, new york city mayor michael bloomberg have come out as sort of the faces of this storm. is there a political impact here? it's been interesting, jim, to watch the relationship between chris christie and president obama and the relationship between mayer bloomberg and president obama. explain that a little bit. >> i find that christie to be most fascinating because he's going out there on all the talk shows really praising barack

obama and how cooperative he's been with governor christie in new jersey. if you look at it from christ christie's perspective, that's what he should be doing. he's a governor who's going to need as much assistance and help in the aftermath of the storm as anyone. befriending the president, praising the president, bringing the president into his state and traveling the state, that's what you do when you're a governor. >> by the way, jim -- by the way, jim, not being cynical, i think you were just about to get to it, the politics of it, he's running next year in the bluest of blue states. and it does not hurt. does not hurt. being tied together with president obama. >> he's just complimenting him. you guys are all making it sound like they're going out and having a beer and, like, becoming best friends. he complimented his leadership. is that against the law? >> it's rather odd. >> does that make it more? is it odd in this climate, the climate's wrong. >> it was effusive. >> i'm more interested in mayor bloomberg and what's going on there. >> continue. jim. >> you know, mayor bloomberg obviously had the opportunity to have the president come to new

york when the president comes to visit new jersey and basically said the trip to new jersey will suffice. and he said last night, he didn't mean to diss him. the truth is, both these guys have a lot on their hands. i don't think that blmberg's thinking a lot about politics right now. i think he's thinking about people where the streets are flooded and people are dying. on either one, i think both of them are doing, what do you do for your state and city? i think the rest of us have a lot of fun trying to read the body language, the subtext. >> willie, bloomberg scalded the president in "the atlantic" interview. this is personal. >> i would say this is a pattern with mayor bloomberg, but i'm with mika on chris christie. he's trying to do a job. what would you like him to say? decline the president's offers? he hasn't been that helpful. >> but he has. >> he's doing what he has to do to help the state. >> there are times when it's fine and it makes sense. do you all think it's political

that there's something else going on? come on. >> what are we saying, he wants to run for president someday? >> come on. you don't think the people of breezy point wouldn't really be moved and touched and perhaps even helped by a visit by the president? because i will tell you that he should go there. >> they don't want to spend two hours. >> really? is it inconvenient? what is it? >> it's inconvenient. >> i think it would be more inconvenient to use helicopters. >> bloomberg isn't bitterly disappointed by president obama. you read "the atlantic" interview. you talk to people who know him. they tell you he's been bitterly disappointed -- can i finish, please -- you were about to interrupt. he's been bitterly disappointed with the president over the past four years. >> yeah. >> and i think he may be offe offended by the president trying to use new york city as a backdrop for a final week for a campaign where i'm not so sure he wants him to be re-elected. >> i think new york city's been really hurt. and up and down the coastline, people have been really hurt. and the president's trying to do his job.

and you know what? i wouldn't accuse him of politics right now. i don't know. look, i like mayor bloomberg a lot. >> wait, wait, wait, stop. you wouldn't accuse who? >> i would not -- you just said that the mayor doesn't want the place being used for political -- >> i'm speculating. >> you're speculating. and i'm saying perhaps i wouldn't speculate right now. that people probably could use -- >> so you don't think the president of the united states' political advisers are thinking that having him with the statue of liberty behind him is not a political backdrop with five or six days to go? does this shock anybody? seriously? does it shock you? >> i'll take it back to the initial question we were talking about, and is that what you think bloomberg's motivation is, to deny him political opportunity? what do you think he's doing? why is he denying the president? >> i've already answered the question. >> what is that? >> he thinks the president has been a bitter disappointment over the past four years. and i am speculating that he

probably doesn't want him here using new york city, the statue of liberty as the backdrop. >> it's a bad time to do that. >> john, what do you think? >> i think it overreads -- i mean, look, there's no question that the obama administration is both trying to do right by policy and governance and by politics the week out from an election. we've heard you guys on the show the last couple days where this is a place where good government rhymes with good politics. it's not trying to elbow its way into new york at the statue of liberty. they're saying hey, you guys want us to come? we'll be there. governor christie thinks it's good for his state. he doesn't want a political backdrop either. but he wants to get help for the people of his state. mayor bloomberg has been obviously disappointed with obama, but also disagreed with romney on almost everything and has been public on both fronts. i think mayor bloomberg is focused, as jim suggested, on trying to get the city lit up

and online and maybe it's more of a pain to have the president logistically than anything else. >> that may be true. >> i think you muddied things up. >> really? >> i'm not sure that people that are watching -- >> i've muddied things up. >> -- don't think that i believe the president's -- >> no. >> no, but you muddied things up, so now people are thinking that i think that. we're talking about the extraordinary -- the extraordinary decision by michael bloomberg to tell a president to stay away. >> yes. >> that does not happen. so we are here trying to speculate -- and i don't want anybody to think that i am suggesting the president wants to use the statue of liberty as a backdrop. the question was asked, willie, it's an extraordinary gesture by the mayor of new york city to tell the president of the united states, stay the hell away. and that's what michael bloomberg's done immediately after a scathing front-page interview in "the atlantic." so i don't know. >> it would be hard to not read a little into it leading up to

this. if it stood alone, you'd say well, it's a logistical question. >> without speculation, i think it's sad. i think there are a lot of people who are hurting in this area that perhaps could benefit and would be heartened by a visit from the president, especially those in the community we were covering earlier, breezy point where i think 100 homes were literally swallowed up by fire. firefighters and police officers. >> and mika, as a guy that's represented an area in the aftermath of a hurricane -- >> you know. >> -- i can tell you nothing lifts the spirits of people in a community more than having the president of the united states come to their communities. i don't know why, but people that are in despair that had their homes blown apart, that have lost everything, that are on their hands and knees and rummaging for pictures trying to find anything, if the president comes to their neighborhood, you know what? it has a huge impact on their lives. >> the spotlight on them.

>> again, that's the only reason why i wanted to make sure there is no question, i'm not saying the president's doing anything cynically. wherever the president of the united states can go, go. that's a good thing. i do find michael bloomberg's decision to tell him to stay away, really strange. >> interesting. >> one question, does the president of the united states really need permission from the mayor of a city to visit? couldn't he just come on his own? >> he kind of does. >> no one else would turn this down but michael bloomberg. up next, jim, thanks very much. >> thank you, jim, for starting a fight. >> you're looking at live pictures from new jersey. this is the jersey shoreline. as fires break out in the wake of hurricane sandy. we'll bring you an update on the storm's devastation and get the latest on where it's headed with bill karins next on "morning joe." honey, they have the 55 inch lg...

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welcome back to "morning joe," bringing you life pictures. it looks like a gas main fire. this is out on coastal central jersey shoreline. this is part of the barrier island that was devastated by the fire. it's hard to tell exactly what has burned. but the flames haven't really been moving too much. and they've been very steady.

so a lot of people here are estimating is probably is some gas line. just more the threat of the aftermath from sandy. now, the other concern this morning, a lot of people i've been talking to, what is so different about this storm is that now it's freezing cold in the aftermath. 8 million people, estimates down to about 7 million without power, have gone through another night with freezing temperatures. very difficult to stay in your homes. windchills right now are in the 30s from d.c. to philadelphia and even up through southern new england. it's a very cold, brisk morning. now the numbers are being estimated at $50 million for sandy. this would put it as the second most expensive u.s. hurricane in our history. and these numbers are adjusted for inflation. the other thing to notice, every storm on this list has happened in the last 20 years. and a lot of them have happened ever since 2005. of course, katrina being the top of that list. the storm right now located over buffalo. it's going to be a slow exit over the next two days. it's still remaining with clouds and raw, cool temperatures.

but the devastating weather is by far over with. just some showers out there today. the rest of the halloween forecast, by the way, for the country looks just fine. the exception being out there in the northwest. of course, we'll have more about sandy and its effects on the election coming up next, harold ford jr. stay with us here on "morning joe." where others fail, droid powers through.

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diss the president. >> right. just stay out of my city. what mayor says that to a president? >> what mayor? >> michael bloomberg. >> harold, what do you think? as the president of the united states, while your people are suffering, wants to come to your district in memphis, do you say no under any circumstances? >> we would probably take it. if i were still representing memphis. >> probably. you would take him. >> gladly. but i respect the mayor. i think the mayor has done a pretty darn good job -- >> that's not the question. don't try to be lit cal hepolit. >> i'm not. if the mayor believes it's in the best interests of the city to get power back up -- >> let me ask you the question this way. can you name another time that a mayor in the united states of america told the president, stay away? >> not that i know of.

not that i know of. >> so you're still without power, right? >> i'm still without power. but i'm told we should expect it back in the next few days. anyway, i just think the city's been well managed. >> oh, sure. he manages it well. >> i trust the mayor. but i do not know of another occasion in which the president has been told that we would prefer you not to come. >> can i just say, i think the mayor does a great job. i do. >> there's a word, i don't think i can use on television. >> about what? >> to describe all of you. weakness, actually. >> what? what are you talking about? >> if you're not in a mayor's shoes, i think it's hard to say yea or nay. i trust the mayor. >> i just have a feeling if this was someone else, you guys would be harsher. that's okay. i like mayor bloomberg, too. i think he's done great things. i disagree with this. i have no problem saying he's

wrong. >> i predicted this would happen. you could take him down into the subway and you could bail him out. >> i think it's a little early for that, joe. >> the mayor did say he was, quote, flattered by the president's office. >> that's nice of the mayor. >> you've got to love him in some ways. he is his own person. he really is. >> $24 billion will do that to you. >> yeah. i will say i do think when you read about the devastation, not just in manhattan but around the city and up the coastline, my gosh. >> the people in the rockaways would love to see the president. >> yeah. >> they really would. >> "wall street journal," big-storm opportunism. citizens in the northeast aren't turning on their tvs if they have electricity to hear mr. obama opine about subways letting. they're tuning in to hear governor chris christie talk about damage to the jersey shore, mayor bloomberg tell them

when bus service might resume. and connecticut governor danell malloy to say when the state's highways might reopen. energetic governors and mayors are best equipped to handle disaster relief because they know their cities and neighborhoods far better than the feds ever will, and they know their citizens will hold them accountable. the feds can help with money and perhaps expertise. the larger liberal fallacy here is that effective government requires bigger government. actually, i think everybody needs everybody but, you know, whatever. >> i think what the world needs now is love, sweet love. so are they saying to the president's opportunistic here? >> making a jab at big government when actually this is the one time the government actually is needed. >> as we said, "the new york times" -- >> do you want to take a look and see if there's more there? >> it's hard to make that argument. governor romney made a

boneheaded comment that supported fema is not the thing you should be doing when you're running deficits. it's clear they're trying to get a little protection to him. i think it's wrong. >> it's lame. there are better things we could be doing with our time than writing these things. harold, stay with us. still ahead -- what? what? it's wrong. >> i'm not going to say anything. >> no, you're not. >> you yelled at me yesterday. >> mika, you're incorrigible. >> really? i'm incorrigible. really? >> incorrigible, you are. >> david axelrod, tom brokaw all ahead on "morning joe." ♪

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look who's here, mika. >> it's coming. it's coming. tom brokaw joins the table when "morning joe" continues. ♪

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♪ oh come take my hand it's a very difficult day. a very difficult day. we're alive. that's the important thing. we'll rebuild. we're tough. >> all right. these are pictures out of atlantic city, new jersey, where the devastation is evident. unbelievable losses up and down the coastline and inland. new york city up through connecticut as well. welcome back to "morning joe." john heilemann and harold ford jr. are still with us. tom brokaw joins the table. good to have you on board this morning. >> good to be here. i was watching you yesterday. i think this is a real tribute to the mix of electronic media and print. if you look at television, the early description of what we do is that we transmit experience, television does. yesterday and the day before was a perfect example of that. but then for the record, "the

new york times" and "the washington post" and the enormous amount of detail that's in there. you can go in with great specificity find out what is going on and what is likely to happen downstream from here. >> and then you throw in the web. >> and the web. >> and the way that twitter, for a lot of people during the middle of the hurricane, being able to figure out what was going on in realtime, following their twitter feeds. and not just a screwing around way but a serious way. >> people take it seriously. they were paying attention to it, and they're connecting to one another. and it's a real meeting of social media, if you will, across the board. >> you know, mika, we were showing a picture of chris christie coming in. and there was a wonderful moment with him with that woman who was crying who obviously lost everything. that's what i was saying last hour about for those that would say this president or let's say governor christie, if they were doing things for political reasons.

all i can tell you is, again, representing a district, i think we got hit by four or five hurricanes while i was down there, for some reason, i have seen it when the governor comes in or the president comes in and puts their arm around somebody who's lost everything that they own in one night, it comforts them in a way that few other things can do. >> and i think the buzz around the bloomberg kerfuffle whether or not the president should come and also about whether or not christie should be saying nice things about the president is silly. leadership is leadership. and when leadership is done well, it should be complimented. and there's no better example of that than someone i completely disagree with, mayor rudy giuliani during 9/11 who went down there and did the right thing in many ways that helped a lot of people and guided them through it. so i just -- i kind of think the

talk about the silliness between the governors and the president and the mayors and the president is wrong. there are political motivations, they should be ashamed of themselves. >> i felt that in 2004 when ivan came and tore through pensacola, florida, with jeb bush. you know, tom, this leadership thing is something that you don't get in a resume. you see it. jeb bush had it in florida in 2004. and to be really blunt, his brother as well as the governor of louisiana and the mayor of new orleans did not have it in 2005. this is when people need comforting. >> yeah. it's an instinct. on the other hand, george bush 43 had his best moment, i always thought, at ground zero when he put his arm around that fireman that day and said, "i can hear you, and they're going to be hearing you in other parts of the world." that was enormous symbolism for the country, reassuring, in command. and at the same time, it said

we're going to act here. and governor christie is a jersey guy, through and through. and what we're seeing in the last 24 hours with him, i think, is what i've seen with him over the last couple of years, wherever he's appeared. i didn't think he had the greatest keynote in the world, but the fact is that he is what he is. when he began to raise hell with the mayor of atlantic city for not following his orders, saying i don't give a damn about the election, i think people respond to that, democrat or republican. >> because it's real. president bush, you mentioned that moment as well as the first pitch soon after -- >> at the world series, incredible. >> incredibly symbolic and brave on a number of levels. he probably shouldn't have done it, but he did it. >> these kinds of events in the political climate in which we now live, there was no fireman that asked someone they were rescuing, are you a tea party member? red or blue state? how do you feel about tax cuts versus spending cuts? people just go out and get the

job done, know that there's a big challenge ahead of u.s. and we all have to link arms and work together. i hope that that will be the enduring message of this. we also have to remember, of course, that we're talking primarily about the northeast now. i don't know what the staying power is over the next several days around the rest of the country about how much they pay attention to it. we are the media capital of the world, and it's going to be dominating the television screens for some time. in other parts of america, people will go about their business and get their jobs, go to work in the morning and open their businesses and look forward to election day on tuesday. >> there is long-term damage, though, here that may last more than a day for sure in terms of the eyes of people across the country. >> yeah. >> the economic impact. >> exactly. >> $50 billion, that will be felt. but tom, it's a great point you make. we've got six days until an historic election. and outside the northeast, people are primarily focused right now on -- well, getting their kids to school.

keeping their businesses open. but in national news, it's an election that's six days away. >> it is. i don't know what the impact of this is going to be. and i don't think anyone does. i've been talking to both campaigns. and they're putting on brave fronts, obviously. today paul ryan's going to be going to colorado, and then they're going to work back to wisconsin and end up on ohio on friday with a big rally there. i don't know how this plays out. my own instinct is, in reading everything that i am, talking to all the campaigns, it's too close to call at this point. i think we're going to have a very long night. this is one more demonstrati demonstration -- i know you're tired of me saying this, an unforeseen impact. and there are other things that could go awry and in some way affect this. but i do think it froze the campaign for romney. he had momentum going. and then everything went on hold for a while. and what the impact of that will

be come tuesday, it's hard to know. but it is a reminder of we work best when we work together on things when there's a big challenge. and these challenges go well beyond what happened with sandy. >> let's cover it all. president obama is pledging quick relief for the millions of victims of hurricane sandy. today he's scheduled to arrive in atlantic city to survey the damage alongside governor chris christie. this morning the associated press reports the storm killed at least 50 people. there are also more than 8.2 million households still without power across 17 states. and many of the outages could last beyond election day. and as we just said, the economic impact expected to reach a staggering $50 billion. the damage was perhaps nowhere worse than the coastline of new jersey where sandy came ashore laying waste to an amusement park and historic boardwalk at seaside heights. as for the airports, jfk and newark liberty international are expected to resume limited service this morning.

the same cannot be said for laguardia. jetblue posted these photos of the runway submerged. more than 18,000 flights have already been canceled as a result of hurricane sandy. and police had to take to the air to save victims from rooftops in staten island after floodwaters surrounded their homes. they were loaded one by one into baskets before being hoisted to safety. and in the breezy point neighborhood of queens, it looks like a war zone. after a fire devastated the small community. more than 100 homes were decimated. officials say the high winds from the storm pushed the flames from one building to the next. breezy point was built in part by new york city firefighters in the early 1900s. many of the first responders who now live there were forced to watch from a distance between flooded roadways as the fires burned down their homes. amazingly, there were no serious injuries reported.

that is an incredible story. that is horrible. look at those pictures. >> it really is. and what a sad scene. obviously, they sat there helplessly watching the fires go, like you said. >> what they do is fight fires. >> harold, before we move on to politics, moving from breezy point into manhattan, and tom was talking about it before, manhattan is really the tale of two cities. 39th street and below, pitch black. you get above 39th street, and all the restaurants are filled. all the hotels are filled with refugees from the south part of manhattan. you're from lower manhattan. yeah. it's pretty tough down there. >> the restaurants are not brimming and full. people's spirits remain high. but it is a tale of two cities. you come uptown and it looks as if nothing really happened. i'm hopeful that we'll have our power back in the next few days.

c con-edison says hopefully by the weekend. >> if you ever get down and depressed, consider the alternative. you could be having it with connecticut light and power. brooklyn never got touched. >> come across the bridge in brooklyn. we've had power the whole time. you're welcome. >> when he says lit up in brooklyn, he really means it. >> i wasn't going to go there, tom, but i'm glad you did. >> mika, let's turn to political news on that high note. >> we've got polls to look at. six days to go. can you believe it's six days? when did this happen? until election day. the focus is obviously on the critical swing states. following from cbs news/"the new york times"/quinnipiac shows the president up five points. in florida, just a single point separates the two candidates. the president had a nine-point lead in september.

it's a similar story in virginia where mitt romney has closed the president's lead to within two points. and when it comes to early voting, the president is ahead in both ohio and florida. >> you know, mika, obviously, the key issue in ohio and across the country, but especially ohio, has been the economy. >> right. >> this poll, not good news for mitt romney. the president still maintains a five-point lead. and you dig into the numbers inside of that poll, and you see why. >> well, okay. we can move on. the same cbs news/"new york times" show 52% of people there feel the economy is getting better. 47% think the economy is staying the same or getting worse. and when asked who cares more about the needs of people like them, president obama leads mitt romney by almost 18 points. >> put up that last poll screen, though. because if somebody's just cooking breakfast for their kids in the kitchen and they hear the way we're announcing it, it's not as stark as the internals

spoken this way. in ohio, according to quinnipiac, 52% of people in ohio think the economy is getting better. only 17% think it's getting worse. let's keep that full screen up there. and tom brokaw, if you're barack obama, those are some of the best numbers you have seen in several years. >> that's true. you know, they have mixed feelings out in ohio. they're very proud of the gains that they've made. kov kovrner kasich has talked about that, he attributes it to change. he took a bit hit when he got defeated on pensions. he says only a few hundred jobs were affected by the gm bailout, i don't think people in ohio feel that. i think they feel the auto industry was key to a lot of their manufacturing. and i was quite stunned by the romney ad that they ran the other day trying to reverse all of that. >> so it's the head of gm. >> you know, and saying chrysler

had been sold to italians and they're going to be building jeeps in china. it was so easily taken apart. it was not clever at all. it wasn't nuanced at all, and it was dead wrong. and then the head of chrysler comes out and says they've got their facts wrong here. >> john heilemann, i want to go back to those numbers. if it's the economy, stupid, and you look at ohio, there's a reason why six months ago governor kasich was talking about how great things were going in ohio when mitt romney was saying, keep it down. again, 52% of people in ohio, according to quinnipiac, say the economy's getting better. only 17% say it's getting worse. that is mitt romney going up against such a strong headwind. at least in the buckeye state. it is hard to see how he picks up those five points over the next six days. >> it's very hard, as we said before, you've seen a lot of polling. this polling is not an outlier. we saw the quinnipiac poll from a couple weeks ago had a

five-point lead. a lot of polls have the president leading by two, three, four, five points, good, solid polls by good, solid outfits that are all coming in consistently in that same range. you know, it is 52% optimistic about the economy. it's not a surprise that president obama is over 50% in that poll. that's the other thing that's striking about that poll. president obama, he's not at 47%, but 48%, he is at 50% now in ohio. and it's a very tough road to hoe for the romney campaign given the weight of the numbers and the internals of these polls. >> as willie geist brought up, there are so few undecideds in the state of ohio, that you look at the internals and the early voting going to the president 2-1 according to these polls. even if 75% of the undecideds now break mitt romney's way, it still may not be enough. >> right. you look at states, the president has to be encouraged, in a state where he's at 48% or higher, you have to imagine the

break will be in favor of him. obviously, 50%, you're pleased at 50%. but if you're at 49%, if you're in the romney campaign and you see any of these key states where the president's there, it's hard to imagine the president not finding an incumbent, any incumbent president finding their way to 50%. unless there's no vote that we don't know about, some vote that is not being disclosed or not apparent in these numbers. >> what vote would that be? >> just people maybe not -- i don't know, be historic, it would be the first time it ever happened. my point is president obama is in a commanding position here headed into these final five or six days. >> let's go to michigan. a new poll finds mitt romney closing in on president obama's once comfortable lead in that state. "the detroit news" poll finds that among likely voters, the race has tightened to be within the margin of error. earlier this month, romney was trailing president obama by approximately six percentage points there. and with signs that michigan is once -- >> now, that's an interesting

poll. the president not being at 48% should give them pause. >> right. >> 48% or higher, you know this. >> right. >> the last five days of looking at your polling, parts of the south, felt good about certain areas. you look at that number there, and you can't feel totally confident that michigan is in the obama corner. >> and why would that be? >> i don't know. i don't know how they feel about their economy. the ohio number, i think, is telling. 52%. i'd be curious to see what michigan voters believe about the economy. >> you look at the overall economy in ohio, obviously things are looking great, tom, for 52%, the people there. you look at detroit. you look at michigan. that is a state that continues to be in decline. >> yeah, and they've got a governor who's taking kind of an unconventional approach of trying to change things in michigan. the same thing you have going on

in wisconsin, these two side-by states up there. i guess the caveat that i have with all of this stuff is that there's still an underlying feeling in the country, things are not quite right. you know. it's not magic. it's not shake and bake. we're not going to wake up wednesday morning and say oh, my god, it's nirvana, and america is a city shining on the hill again. a lot of people are still very, very uncomfortable with the direction of the country. they lack a lot of confidence in the institutions. and the fact is -- and i've had this conversation with both of these campaigns as well -- i don't think that there's a mass love affair with either one of these guys at this point. i mean, you know, they've worked out their constituencies. the ground game is going to be critical in the next several days. but it's going to come down to that, who can turn out their voters. who will get to the polls. >> let me ask you, tom, if you're getting to a point that i think harold was getting to and something that i believe, you look at the numbers. and if you're just looking at the numbers right now a week

out, you get the sense that barack obama's holding on. and statisticwise, numberwise, things are looking pretty darn good for him. you go out and talk to people, and again, it's very unscientific. but i will tell you, i knew when i was winning or losing a campaign, not based on what polls said, based on how tightly people grabbed my arm and i walked through a crowd. based on people crabbing me, begging for yard signs, it was the intangibles, and it sounds, again, and i hate to keep going back to 1980, but i think there is a comparison there where some things don't show up in the polls. and it breaks the last weekend just because people say things aren't quite right. i'm not saying that's going to happen here. i am saying there are a lot of people in the media, and there's an important point. i'm looking at the numbers and i understand. my mind is telling me obama's going to win. i talk to people out in america, and i just -- you know, i just wonder whether there's going to be a last-minute surge.

a lot of people are saying that off camera. >> well, the obama people were counting -- i mean, pardon me, the romney people were counting on that. a lot of people who were there in 1980 thought this could happen. but i think hurricane sandy and the media attention and all of this has changed the equation to some degree. one member of the romney campaign said we kind of all wished the election were today or tomorrow. that's what they think they had going at that point. how this affects it, it's very hard to know. we can sit here and talk about it all day long. a lot of folks, i still believe, saturday, sunday, monday are going to be talking to their neighbors and friends and making up their minds at the last moment despite what both campaigns say we know where our voters are. >> if they go back to what you just said, feeling something's not quite right. let me ask you, when did they feel things were right? what's the counter to that? as it pertains to when?

>> i think it's been some time. >> before the bubble burst? >> no, no. i think 9/11. before 9/11 is when people -- things were okay. but that changed the equation. i mean, we went into our two longest wars. we were handing out big money to big banks. >> i would differ just slightly because we experienced a great boom in the country from '04 to '07, and it was when the housing bubble burst that things changed so dramatically for middle-class families across the country. and particularly middle-class america thinks about how their bank account, how their housing, how their house value has changed over the last few years, i think that has people saying things haven't gotten better. i don't disagree that all the fundamental profound difference in the country pre-9/11. but if you look at the housing bubble and the growth in income and household wealth, that changed dramatically, to joe's

point, mid-september '08. people look back and it was a belief things were going to get better. i don't differ with you. >> i think that's perception versus reality. i think the reality was, it was a false move. that's my point. >> i would agree with that. >> we were living on the bubble. and 9/11 changed everything. and we didn't deal with the reality of how it changed everything. that's my point. >> tom, stay with us. still ahead, obama care senior adviser david axelrod joins us. also, comedian and co-creator of "the daily show," lizz winstead. and next, nbc news political director chuck todd and "new york times" correspondent jim r ruttenberg. ah.

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who will do more for the auto industry? not barack obama. fact checkers confirm his attacks on mitt romney are false. the truth? mitt romney has a plan to help the auto industry. he's supported by lee iacocca and "the detroit news." obama took gm and chrysler into bankruptcy and sold chrysler to italians who are going to build jeeps in china. mitt romney will fight for every american job. >> i'm mitt romney, and i approve this message. >> i'm barack obama, and i approve this message. >> when the auto industry faced collapse, mitt romney turned his back. even the conservative "detroit news" criticized romney for his wrong-headedness on the bailout. and now after romney's false claim of jeep outsourcing to china, chrysler itself has refuted romney's lie. the truth? jeep is adding jobs in ohio.

mitt romney on ohio jobs, wrong then. >> let detroit go bankrupt. >> dishonest now. >> 26 past the hour. look at that shot of washington, d.c., as the sun comes up this morning. you just saw dueling ads playing out in ohio. each campaign jockeying for the title of who's the bigger champion of the car industry? joining us now from the white house, nbc news chief white house correspondent and political director and host of "the daily rundown," chuck todd. and in chicago, national political correspondent for "the new york times," jim rutenberg, good to have you on board. >> thanks for having me. >> chuck, we'll start with you. jockeying for position over the car industry. really? is that an argument here? help me out. >> reporter: well, to me, it's a little bit of a tell, i think, on the romney campaign's part in that that is their hurdle, right? they have been underperforming -- i mean, we can use it demographically. they're underperforming

particularly with white men from the sort of in the auto belt, if you will, from toledo to akron, in that area on down to dayton. there's a reason the romney folks felt they had to go up with that ad. i don't know whether they thought the ad would actually encourage gm and chrysler to repudiate them. i wonder if they thought that was going to happen, whether -- if they knew that was going to happen, whether they would have gone up with this ad. it feels a little -- look, they are very careful with the lines that they use so that they can make the argument it's technically factual. >> right. >> reporter: but obviously, they're implying something that's not there. again, the local coverage of this in this part of the state has not been good for romney in this last week. this is a case where they probably wished there was more coverage of sandy in that part of the state than this ad and this issue. >> go ahead. >> let me ask you, chuck, about the polls. and jim, follow up with you.

ohio, the nbc poll has shown five points. and now we have a quinnipiac poll out today showing the president up by five points, at 50%. and if you go into the internals, it seems to me, at least, devastating for mitt romney if this poll is to be believed that, like, 52% of people in ohio think the economy is getting better. only 17% think it is getting worse. i don't know how mitt romney overcomes that in six days. >> reporter: look, you were talking earlier, and i'm with you, there's two ways of looking at this election. you look at it in feel and the intangibles and by the numbers. when you look at just the state of ohio, this is a case where the intangibles, the numbers and the body language from the romney campaign all seems to point to obama is ahead. you can dispute five points. but you don't put up that ad that the romney phones are putting up and trying to pit

this argument now if you believe you're ahead in ohio or on your way to being ahead, right? why would you want this to be the final issue felt? you had to flow something else. you had to do something to change the conversation, change the race, change something in that part of the state. this is a case where in ohio, all of it lines up in the same way. intangibles, the numbers, the body language of the romney folks. >> and mika, perhaps -- and jim wrote about this ad -- that was so easily disproved that perhaps that shows a sign of desperation at least in ohio. >> before i get to jim, what other approach could the romney campaign take in ohio? >> i think they're running out of time. they're running out of time. they keep telling us that their internals look better than these media polls. >> right. >> they obviously don't. you don't put up that ad that is so easily disproved that you have the head of the auto companies coming out knocking you. >> jim rutenberg, you've written in "the new york times," "romney

campaign stands by its ad. does the ad had the impact it had, whether it's right or wrong? >> the only reason that i think it must have some impact is they've stuck with it even after this first hit. i was in toledo yesterday, and it was still running. so they're kind of operating right now in a way that if they tried something new, if they contest something they hadn't contested, maybe something will change. and ohio is so important. now, the problem that they have is, you know, has chuck alluded to, if you walk around in toledo and ask people if you think jeep's going to move out of here, they know what's happening. the factory is huge. they're rebuilding it. they're hiring again. so people know they're up against a deep ingrained knowledge. it's like your local sports team. you know what's going on with it. >> so chuck, you look at the other states in the quinnipiac poll. i know it's not your poll, but at the same time -- >> reporter: thank you for noting that. >> when you look at trend lines, though. i bring up the nbc poll and the

quinnipiac poll because they have been, over the past four to six years, i think the most reliable, steady polls. and when quinnipiac says that florida is a dead let aheat and is saying the same thing. both of you guys are saying that ohio, barack obama by a five-point spread, i'm sorry. if i'm a republican, that gives me pause! either you guys are cooking the books in a way that you think like november 8th will never come, or this is not really good news for the romney people. >> reporter: well, again, i go to body language here. and where's romney today? where's he resuming the campaign full time? the state of florida. the state of florida. my point is, look. florida and virginia are going to be with the national polls. those are two states that are, at the end of the day, they're basic microcosms of the country. they're never going to be more

than one point between the national polls. they're demographically sort of, you know, one state's a little more african-american. one state's a little more hispanic. they basically in class and all that stuff, they basically mirror where the national number usually is. where are the national numbers? it's a one-point race. of course, florida and virginia will be a one or two-point race. it's a game of turnout in most places. joe, look at romney's florida schedule today. it's about turnout. it's about the base. it's about cranking up these numbers. and that's what it's down to now, right? does romney hit -- and i think that that's where you feel like when you go through this intangible, does romney hit 105% of his targets? and does obama hit 90% to 95% of his turnout target? if that happens, then romney may eke this out. but does obama hit 95% to 100% of his turnout target and romney's only at 100% to 105%? well, the obama folks believe they win in that scenario.

and that's what's now going on in florida and virginia. >> mark? >> jim rutenberg, governor romney back full-time candidate in florida. the president spending at least today being fema commander in chief. do you think the president's going to stay off campaigning, or do you think he'll go back tomorrow, and does it matter? >> i think he's going to be out campaigning pretty quickly. i think he's in a tricky situation now where he's going to start looking like he's being overtly political and posturing a little bit. i don't think he's there yet, but i think that could come. >> harold ford? >> chuck, back to you for one moment. we showed a poll, mika and joe showed a poll where michigan seems to be tightening where the number -- i made the point 48% or higher, 48% to 50%, 50% is fantastic, but the president will assume he can jump to 50%, and any incumbent, with the president dropping to 47.7%, the race tightening in michigan, how do you read those numbers? is it real there, do you think?

and if so, how do the next few days play out, do you believe? >> reporter: look, i think it goes to this feeling, you know, peter hart, our last poll, peter hart said a very important thing about our last poll nationally. he said he can make an argument how romney could get to 52% or 53% nationally. well, guess what? if that happens and we have sort of this traditional and it goes to joe's, if this is 1980 and everything goes that way, well, then minnesota and michigan and pennsylvania and oregon are also going to go, okay? that's just sort of the nature -- those states, they'd be closer than a four to five, six-point national spread would be, but all of those states we're talking about are going to go. but if you believe the race is going to be a one-point race nationally, then the president's going to win michigan by three or four, minnesota by four to five, oregon by five or six. that's just sort of the nature of where those states fit in the tapestry. and i think it just goes to this point. do you believe that there is

this last-minute momentum that all just goes mitt romney's way, the way some campaigns do end this way of challenger versus incumbent, or do you believe this is 2004 and the undecided split basically even, maybe slight advantage to romney, but at the end of the day, the floodwalls, if you will, hold for obama. >> right. if the floodwalls hold, then it's a close race for the president. and jim rutenberg, if it goes the other way, then of course it could be a big night for romney. we don't know. you know, i've said it before. and my race, he was tied 49%-49% the friday before tuesday, i won 62%-38% because everything in the country broke that way that weekend. you've been in ohio. what are you seeing out on the campaign trail? >> you know, you have to feel -- romney has a sense of momentum, obviously. we all feel it. ohio, as the polls show, it's a little bit less. i was in toledo.

obama's really strong there. but what's interesting to me is here in chicago, the constitution is sort of the science of the campaign. the obama campaign has its ground game down to precise numbers, who they have to turn out where, they're spending so much time and money figuring this out. that's science. the romney campaign is passion, energy, they're coming on, their campaign seems a little more excited. part of that's the nature of being a challenger versus an incumbent running a re-election. depending on which city you're in, boston or chicago, you come out with two different -- both make really compelling cases for themselves. the polls are tight enough that either one could be totally not spinning and believing it, but who knows? >> who knows? >> tom brokaw, just final thoughts in the final days of the campaign, how much should the events matter? then you've got the science of the campaign muddled by the storm. >> well, if nothing happens that is unexpected between now and then, the scenario is going to be does the romney wave override

the obama ground game and getting out the vote? the romney people have been counting on what happened with reagan, as you know, in 1980. did he get frozen in place here? he's not the same guy that ronald reagan was in a lot of ways. i've just been looking at the toledo blade and dayton daily news, and the auto business is not on the front page. it's mostly about sandy at this point. very little about politics in ohio in those two papers that are right at ground zero. we'll see. you'll hear from david axelrod later that they're feeling confident about where they are because their long-term plan was to turn out their vote and their constituencies, and they think that will get them through. i think we are in for a close race. that's my guess at this point. as you've heard me say before, so many things can happen in six days in this geologic age. >> it's only a guess. >> jim rutenberg, thank you so much. thank you as well. we'll see you on "the daily

rundown." harold, thank you as well. >> thank you, brother. everybody getting their power back. >> good luck to you and everybody. >> yes. harold. still ahead -- >> harold's going to be okay. >> i worry about him. >> i am, too. >> we're following live pictures from above the jersey coast where the extent of the damage there is beyond what officials feared. and in some places beyond description. we'll have an update from bill karins next on "morning joe." stay top of mind with customers? from deals that bring them in with an offer...

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hey, harold, really briefly, you brought up something that you and mark talked about. and something that doesn't seem to be adding up with any of these polls. talk about it. >> you showed the poll earlier, the president down 52%-39% amongst independent voters. i can't quite understand, if that number is correct, which mark made the point you find it consistent across polls, how do you find it romney is not ahead even within the margin of error in these swing states? but you see, something's not adding up. >> mark halperin, why are we seeing in one of these polls,

police seven, plus eight, plus nine, democratic advantage, mitt romney winning with independents. i said earlier today, unless these polls are getting it all wrong, are they getting it all wrong? >> mathematically, we're seeing it. the samples are big amongst democrats. >> answer this question for me. how does mitt romney lose an election where he is beating the president by 12 points among independent voters? >> you have to assume an electorate that's more democratic than the midterm election was in some cases than four years ago which seems highly up likely. and so it's not answerable. you can come up with theories, but it's not really answerable. it's one thing republicans point to. you can't win this election with independents. >> we were going to go to bill karins' forecast. >> let's do it. >> yeah, but when you explained this -- >> we'll do it. >> we'll do bill a little bit

later, and he has information about election day which is also going to cause some disruptions in voting. >> the weather story continues. we'll be right back. >> we'll be right back. story about that, bill. we've all had those moments. when you lost the thing you can't believe you lost. when what you just bought, just broke. or when you have a little trouble a long way from home... as an american express cardmember you can expect some help. but what you might not expect, is you can get all this with a prepaid card.

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willie, it's time for a confession. >> it is. >> she's a thief. >> as we look at a beautiful sunrise sunset, we're about to bring you some ugly news. >> she loots. >> our good friend lizz winstead, the author of "lizz, free or die." her new show "bang the drum slowly." how many "morning joe" mugs do you have? >> i would say three. i have active mornings at my house. i want to offer -- people feel bad if they're over and they

don't have a "morning joe" cup. let's say they have an old cup from some old donny deutsch show, you know, from cnbc. >> "the big idea." >> i do have a "big idea" mug. >> no. do you really? >> i used to produce the crazy weekend show. and we shot it at cnbc. and there was a -- i'm kind of a klepto. >> if you're stealing donny deutsch's coffee mugs, that is a really bad sign. >> i do it, too. i do. i take things. >> i can't help it. >> i love it. >> it's true. >> i fill my bag. is it that bad? >> my book? >> willie geist, i understand a lot of people say is changing the publishing industry as we know it. >> king james bible moved to number two that week. >> and it was also, you were suspiciously absent when i made my book debut. >> that's right. >> so it was clear that you feared me. >> i did fear you.

yes, i did. >> you know what's crazy, i was so glad you weren't here because i have to tell you, and this is so crazy, my dad was from philadelphia, mississippi. meridian. conservative, so my sisters and i have this weird relationship with you that you don't even know about where -- >> no, i don't. >> it's like i say joe is like our dad. you know, that constant, i'm holding court, i'm going to interrupt, i have a whole become. and then my mom would be, he's like wilber, my dad's name. i'm trying to say something and then he blah, blah, blah. and we all have this weird joe scarborough relationship with ourselves and it all involves part charm, part, could you just shut your cake hole for a minute, and then pause for a minute. >> for a minute. >> and let mika speak. or, mika, would you get him to shut up his cake hole. good point. you made your point.

and you keep making your point. >> enough. >> with the point making. you make your point and i totally agree. no, but still, really. no, i get it. i get it. >> i do. >> but it comes from a place of love. >> a place of love. >> i lived in meridian for five years. >> yes. >> my dad worked for lockheed. that's where i started playing, music stores. >> it's kind of crazy. there's all these weird parallels. scarborough, you have to stop talking -- it's like my dad. >> it's like thanksgiving dinner. >> in a way, yeah. >> daddy issues with joe scarborough. >> and i think i'm older which is even weirder. >> this relationship is very edible, but go ahead. >> lizz, let's get your take on where we are. we have six days. we've been going through the polls trying to figure out where it stands. it's hard to know. where do you see this race? >> i think this polling becomes completely idiotic.

it's like at one point you're like will you just lock in the walmart moms who are sort of believe it was a hoax. >> that's all we need. >> that's all we need. the dissection is crazy. >> by the way, can i just say, i think those ads that we're running now in ohio, that may get them. >> i think you may be right. you guys have been talking about minnesota for the past couple of days. you know, there's two huge initiatives. i'm from minnesota so i love it. one is to make sure that this gay marriage does not get on the ballot and the other is the voter i.d. ballot. they're doing really well in those ballots. when you look at initiatives that are important to people who is winning, it all comes together. and michele bachmann's race for the first time is tight. her race is tight for the first time. so that all plays in. it really motivates the left. so minnesota is going to stay with obama because there's a big

mo motivation. >> do you believe it's as close as the polls show? are you surprised by that? >> when you see the fickleness of people, people standing slack jawed in a grocery store trying to figure out what to buy. i trust no american. we live in a microwave society. slack jawed going, i don't know. peaches or pears? >> and these are people you want to buy. >> it should not be hard at this point. >> all right. >> let's talk about your show really quickly. you have a big show. >> i do, monday. >> huge. >> basically, as we all have watched -- >> the beatles live at shea. this is huge. >> it's now time to be quiet. >> again, excuse me, shush. yeah. if you have watched this election unfold, it is basically the greatest hits of the insanity that's happened in 2012. we're going to watch it. i'll give you a recap down memory lane and then people will

feel happy, scared, sad, hopefully hilariously funny. >> that's going to be fun. >> are you coming? >> yes. >> good. exactly. perfect. >> can i say thank you? is. >> yes, joe? >> can i say thank you for being here? can i come to the show? >> you can. you can't interrupt me on stage. can you do that? >> i don't know if i can do that. would your dad be able to guarantee that? >> no. >> okay, so there you go. >> i'll come to the show. >> thank you. >> thank you, lizz. >> thank you, guys. >> personal motto is i trust no american. >> i trust no american. >> and, by the way, it's because she's going to turn another coffee cup when we turn our backs. lizz, monday, the long road to the white house. lizzwinstead.com for tickets. >> very good. coming up next, obama campaign senior adviser david axelrod. no, no, no, stop!

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welcome back to "morning joe." when we come back new poll numbers out for ohio, virginia and florida. plus, the latest on the devastating damage from hurricane sandy. now it's stirred.

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good morning. it's 8:00 on the east coast. 5:00 on the west coast. if you take a live look at new york city. back with us on set we have mark halperin and john. the aftermath of hurricane sandy. the president of the united states pledging quick relief for the millions of victims of the hurricane. today president obama is scheduled to arrive at atlantic city to survey the damage alongside governor chris christie. this morning the associated press reports the storm killed at least 50 people. between damage to property and the economy, the total impact

expected to reach a staggering $50 billion. the damage was perhaps nowhere worse than the coastline of new jersey where sandy came ashore, the historic boardwalk at seaside heights. as for the airport, jfk, newark, they're expected to start limited service this morning. the same cannot be said for lagar laguardia. jetblue posted these photos of the runway submerged. more than 18,000 flights canceled as a result of sandy. and police had to take to the air to save storm victims from rooftops in staten island, new york, after floodwaters surrounded their homes. they were loaded one by one into baskets before being hoisted to safety. and now let's go to breezy point, a neighborhood of queens which looks like a war zone after a fire devastated the small community. absolutely devastated it. more than 100 homes destroyed. officials say the high winds

from the storms pushed the flames from one building to the next. amazingly there were no serious injuries reported there but, my god, look at that neighborhood. it is completely gone. everything is gone. the devastation there, the neighborhood, as we saw on the news last night, made up mainly of police officers and firefighters who live there which makes it, in some ways, more painful. >> one of my friends at the fdny fighting the fire talked about standing back because they couldn't get -- >> there was no way. >> through the storm surge and they were literally watching their own homes, the fire would jump from home to home to home. and there was nothing they could do about it. they couldn't get close enough to fight it. they had to stand and watch their own neighborhood burn to the ground. >> so sad. so sad. it's amazing nobody was injured. >> nobody. >> i was sure somebody would have been caught in the flames. amazing. >> a lot of them, these neighborhoods, were evacuated,

obviously, and there were those who didn't and there were a lot of problems caused by that as well. and then a lot of freak deaths. people just doing -- sometimes people doing the right thing and getting caught in the path of the wrong thing. >> yeah. >> horrible. a lot to talk about there. we'll be covering the aftermath and the information as it comes in. we also are just days away from a presidential election, and there will be some impact there literally to the logistics of it. we have six days to go until election day. the focus is still on the critical swing states. polling from cbs news, "the new york times," and quinnipiac shows the president up by five points in ohio. that is unchanged from two weeks ago. in florida, just a single point separates the two candidates. the president had a nine-point lead in september. it's a similar story in virginia where mitt romney has closed the president's lead to within two points. >> the president said in both virginia and ohio -- the economic outlook is a big reason why barack obama is maintaining

this five-point lead. look at the same poll. these internals are brutal for mitt romney. any way you slice it unless you believe that quinnipiac, one of the most accurate polling outfits out there, is cooking the books. and if you do, change channels because you're listening to the wrong channel. >> yes. >> the internals show that 52% of the people in ohio think the economy is getting better. 47% think the economy is staying the same or getting worse. when asked who cares more about people like them, president obama leads mitt romney by almost 18 points. john, if it's ohio, ohio, ohio, and the president is maintaining a five-point lead and he's ahead 2-1 in early voting in ohio based on this poll, if you assume that the people at quinnipiac are not in the tank for barack obama and are not sniffing glue and none of us believe that because, again,

four years ago and two years ago quinnipiac was really one of the most accurate polls. now this is a firewall that it's going to be hard for mitt romney to get past. >> it's sure starting to look like that and has been looking like that are for a while. we've seen a lot of polling and there's been some variance but i don't think there's been a poll that's had romney closer than two in ohio. >> mostly over the last couple of weeks a lot of polling has obama three to five points ahead and internals look a lot like this. we discussed it ad nauseam on the air, the unemployment rate is way below the national average and people have a sense of economic optimism in the state that is greater. >> we're less than a week out. he's maintaining a five-point

lead not only in this poll. a five-point lead and also one of the more accurate polls. you know, at some point romney's people telling you and you and me and everybody, oh, don't believe the media polls. they have all of the figures wrong. our internals show we're tied. at some point that just doesn't wash. they have to win michigan or pennsylvania or minnesota. >> that's right. and look at the way they're behaving in ohio with the ad that they put on, this whole thing about chrysler and jeep. they're behaving -- there's an element of apparent desperation on their part. they seem to be throwing a lot of stuff at the wall in ohio which suggests a certain amount of if not desperation they have a sense that they're losing there. >> mark, you look at the quinnipiac poll this morning and you see it's still a five-point lead. we've got less than a week until the election. you look at the internals. over 50% of the people there think that in ohio the economy

is getting better. i'm underlining this because i'm not saying mitt romney can't win. but if you take ohio off the table for mitt romney and it's really close, it's really, really close to being off the table for mitt romney unless there is some massive reagan-like landslide the last week, then suddenly mitt romney's pathway to 270 gets very, very narrow. he has to run the board or he has to expand the map. >> don't forget virginia which also, according to the recent polling data is not a sure thing for the president -- for mitt romney. and florida where governor mitt romney is spending the day. the last 48 hours have seen a lot of move to romney, in a commanding position because we've seen advertising go on in pennsylvania and michigan and minnesota and candidate visits and surrogate visits. if governor romney can't find a way to win ohio, he has a very

hard path and he still has to lock down these southern states. so i think, you're right, the romney people say they're in a much better position in ohio than the public polls show. if they're wrong about that, he's not going to win. >> every public media poll, willie, has to be cooking their books for barack obama. or assuming the electric wrong, and if the electorate has changed so radically in two years suddenly quinnipiac is confused, fine. somebody will give a dissertation on it after the election. i just don't see it and i'm frustrated this morning because they keep telling me, oh, don't believe the media polls. don't believe the media polls. here we are a week out, less than a week out. it's still five points in ohio. i can tell you as a practicing politician if you're down five points a week out and you were down five points two weeks out, problem. >> and obama at 50. >> and obama's at 50. >> and one other note inside

that "new york times" poll, conventional wisdom is that president obama would struggle with white working class voters. in ohio anyway, not in virginia and not in florida but in ohio he's even with mitt romney among white voters who do not have a college degree. that's very important. >> and, by the way, i think he's up 30 in florida. >> 30, yeah. >> and so he's up 30 points, willie,florida among white voters but in ohio he's dead even. >> he's dead even. florida and virginia. >> and virginia. >> 30 points. >> think about how much of that -- how much of the negative advertising took place this summer and you still see it in the numbers there on the doesn't care about people like me. numbers are so upside-down there. he has negatives -- a little over 50% of people say governor romney doesn't care about people like them. only 44% say they do. that is the result of a summer of pummeling in ohio by the obama campaign and the super pacs which worked harder knowing that the state could be a firewall, knowing that had they could hold the electoral map if

they could hit ohio. hit harder there than anywhere and you see the internals of how that shows up in terms of image in that state. >> and so, mika, i said they had to run the table if they lose ohio or they have to expand the map. one area where romney's people are talking about expanding the map, michigan. >> you mentioned michigan, and a new poll finds mitt romney is closing in on president obama's once comfortable lead in that state. the detroit news, wdiv local poll found that among likely voters the race has tightened to be within the margin of error. earlier this month romney was trailing president obama by approximately six percentage points and with signs that michigan is once again in play, the pro-romney super pac return our future launched a $2.2 million ad and the obama campaign is countering with its first network tv ads in michigan. the ads are expected to begin airing today and will run

through election day. >> so, mark halperin, michigan. that's a good poll, right? >> it is. >> michigan is in play now? >> if you look -- if you think the quinnipiac poll is right about ohio then the obama explanation of why they're going into these states is more credible. >> these states being michigan and pennsylvania? >> which is not, oh, my god, the sky is falling, we're losing everywhere. we need to play a lot of defense. they can't win ohio so they're looking for another place so we have enough money to make sure nothing goes wrong. the president is not going to win these battleground states by the same margins he won by last time. there's a natural tightening here. most select republican governors two years ago and so the president would be happy winning these states by two or three points. >> michigan, though, 2 1/2 points. john heilemann, it's a state we

republicans stopped expecting to win when ronald reagan retired. it's like you usually put it in the pennsylvania category, do you believe mitt romney is within the margin of error in michigan? >> i tend to give it the benefit of the doubt. it's a good poll. it's a fine poll and it's close. i'm interested to see when governor romney or congressman ryan makes a are trip to michigan, you know, and that will tell you that they actually believe there's a chance of winning michigan. as of right now i think ann romney has been in michigan relatively recently. watch the travel schedules. governor romney is in florida today, two or three stops in florida. we saw the tightening in north carolina, too. this map is getting complicated in it a lot of ways. watch the travel schedule of these guys and you'll see whether they think it's a place they can pick up. >> friday governor romney's campaign is doing a huge surrogate thing to try to counteract bill clinton to some

extent who is a super surrogate all by himself. so mccain, rubio -- >> who do they have? meatloaf. >> kid rock. they will fan out. some of that fanning out will be to pennsylvania and michigan with pretty major surrogates, maybe not the candidates themselves. >> soap the battle continues over which candidate and michigan and ohio are a bigger champion of the auto industry. a life blood of many ohio towns with mitt romney's campaign running a radio ad accusing president obama of allowing manufacturing jobs to be shipped overseas. the ad says under president obama gm cut 15,000 jobs but is planning to double the number of cars built in china. and the ad says chrysler also plans to start making jeeps in china. but a general motors spokesman told the detroit free press, quote, we've clearly entered some parallel universe during the last few days. no amount of campaign politics at its cynical worst will diminish our record of creating

jobs in the u.s. and repatriating profits back to this country. okay. >> willie, what do you think of? car-gate. >> they shouldn't lie. >> i think it's suggestively untrue. the ads. >> okay. >> it is false. no? what romney said on the stump was false. the ad is true. it's misleading but it's true. >> explain what you mean. >> i'm sorry. >> production in the u.s. exists. they are talking about making jeeps to sell in china in china. romney initially suggested on the stump wrongly that they were going to move all jeep production to china including selling -- building them in china, selling them back in the u.s. >> that would be bad for american work eers. bad. >> what the ad refers to is the fact that rather than making jaeps in the u.s. and shipping them to china, they're thinking of making jeeps in china to sell in china. >> you actually look at -- >> the suggestion of the ad, the

implication of the ad is blatantly false. >> jeep has been doing this for years. >> multinational car company does in the era of globalization, you go to the countries where you sell the cars and make them there like toyota makes cars they sell in america in ohio. their ad is suggesting that we're against globalization, we're against multinational firms in america to do business abroad. >> oh, my god, just to be accurate, also you just want to add in companies like ford are now exporting and it's helping us, to different countries. >> it would be better for american workers to build jeeps in the u.s. there would be more american jobs. >> well, not necessarily. the company may be less profitable then. >> the reason gm does this is it makes more money by producing jeeps in china for china. as it says, repatriating the profits and using that money to invest in american jobs in america. that's how globalization works. >> by the way, i can't believe this morning that you are such a

globalist. >> you really are. >> you also make deals with china. you say, you know, we'll buy x number of cars and you build those cars in our country. and if i'm not mistaken, some american companies, you know, some american companies will do the same thing here, too. i don't know. i think it does point to possibly desperation. >> yes. >> do we think? in ohio? >> maybe that's just the way they operate. when we come back we'll talk to david axelrod about the race now six days out. also ahead, many credit her with inspiring wildly popular forensic crime shows like "csi" patricia cornwell will be here, now out with her 20th thriller. but first it's actually kind of thrilling, too, he's done a great job, bill karins with a

check on the forecast. bill? i have to take that and play it back, mika. thank you so much. well, good morning, everyone. it looks like our forecast is going to continue to be interesting in the week ahead. that's a little tease. the election day forecast coming up. we're getting rid of sandy the next couple of days. this superstorm still lingering over the top of buffalo. you've seen the pictures, heard the stories. the question now is where is it going to fall in history? the most extensive u.s. hurrica hurricanes estimated at $50 billion, billion, dollars. right around andrew and these numbers are taking into account inflation over the years from andrew in 1992. so this is one of the worst storms in our country's history as far as how much damage it has done. as far as the forecast, it is cold and chilly in the areas without power. we need that power on in a hurry. it's not going to warm up anytime soon as we head into november tomorrow. as far as the forecast today, a few showers out there especially northern new england. the rest of the holiday forecast does look quiet out there. the west coast does have some

rain and showers we're dealing with. now i teased you with the election day forecast. this is kind of my first look ahead for it. as far as what we're dealing with, it looks like we're going to possibly see another coastal storm. now our computers are split once again. one of them that was really good with sandy has it just brushing the coast but the other one, which is our american computer model has it being a high impact event to the northeast maybe impacting ohio, virginia and new hampshire, all swing states. of course i'll update the forecast and try to pin it down as we get to election day. well, look at that, we are looking at the new jersey coastline and we have said we thought that the ocean could possibly meet the bay there and run right through the barrier islands, and that's a live picture even at this hour still moving right through what used to be the beautiful resort areas of coastal emergennew jersey. that's mantoloking, new jersey. unbelievable scene.

i don't give a damn about election day. it doesn't matter a lick to me at the moment. i have much bigger fish to fry than that, so do the people in the state of new jersey. so let the politicians who are on the ballot worry about election day. joining us from chicago, senior adviser to president obama's re-election campaign, david axelrod. david, good to have you on the show this morning.

>> thank you. good to be with you guys. >> what do you have in terms of campaign events, if any, today, and will the president be coming to new york? >> the president will be in new jersey with governor christie in the atlantic city area today. we don't have any campaign events scheduled today. we'll resume campaigning tomorrow but obviously this storm takes precedence. as you've been reporting it's been a devastating event and that's where the president's focus has been properly, i think, the last few days. >> and where we've been looking at the swing state polls, ohio, the president appears to be strong, and the romney campaign is coming on strong with some ads that some might consider to be a tad bit misleading pertaining to the car industry. are you all confident that ohio is going to be taken by your candidate? >> we're confident but we're also going to fight to the very

last moment. it's obviously huge amounts of resources and, as you pointed out, it's break glass time in boston. they put up an ad that was patently false. in fact, in toe ledo jeep is adding a shift at their factory to build more cars and the clear implication was somehow american jobs were being shipped away. they put an ad up in central pennsylvania, the discredited welfare to work charge that we had so much discussion about during the summer and they're going to state that they're simply not going to win in hopes they can make something happen to compensate for the fact that we're even or our campaign is ahead in all of these battleground states and so there's not one battleground state that they can say with absolute confidence that they're going to win and, you know, so i think there's a sense of desperation in boston and it's refle reflected in tactics that i

think will work against them. you know, if you read the press in ohio and obviously you show the statements from the automakers, there's been a really strong reaction to these ads which are just so cynical and so blatant. >> so, david, let me ask you a couple of questions. what battleground states can you confidently say this morning you guys are going to win? i understand they can't -- >> no, no, no. no, no, and that's a fair question, joe, because as i've said for a year they're battleground states for a reason even by definition. but you look at -- you look at a state like nevada. i feel very good about where we are based on the early vote on the registration age that has mounted up over time. >> do you feel like you are locked in high ground? >> i feel we're in a strong position in ohio. you look at the early vote numbers in ohio reflected in that quinnipiac poll. >> 2-1. >> so we're going to go until election day. we're going to go into election

day with quite -- and iowa is very much in that same category. we have a huge lead in the early voting in iowa. and hatch the people in iowa, 45% to 50% will vote before election day. so, you know, but there's no state, joe, where i would say, gee, i don't think we have a shot there. >> right. >> and every single state i feel like we're competitive. i don't think republicans would have told you they'd be fighting for virginia or fighting for florida or even north carolina -- >> that's what's so fascinating. we have quite a few questions to get through, i don't mean to be rude. i hope you'll forgive me. >> no, that's okay. >> you're a good friend of ours. >> not that you wouldn't be, but i -- >> yeah, i hope you understand. really quickly, you can put michigan on other side of that ledger, polling shows mitt romney under three points. minnesota, there's a poll in minnesota that mark halperin brought up a new pennsylvania

poll that has it four. there are a lot of these, the map is expanding. it's kind of crazy out there, isn't it? there are a lot of states on the map. >> here is what is true in the era of super pacs there's a lot of money out there and people can take fliers on states that they don't necessarily think they're going to win. i'm telling you, joe, with all due respect to the public polls that are 0 out there, you know, they are all over the map. i can only rely on the information that i have that i count on that is solid research. i will come on "morning joe" and i will shave off my mustache of 40 years if we lose any of those three states. and i think they know that as well. >> wait, wait. >> now you're going to do that on air? >> 8:29 -- >> so if you lose minnesota -- >> you are not allowed -- >> michigan or pennsylvania you will shave off that mustache. >> on the show?

>> yes. but what i should do is make a deal with you and say you'll grow one if we win them. >> oh, gosh. no. >> i can do a poll -- on the other side if, let's say, you guys win florida or north carolina, how is that? >> well, you mean i have to come on the show and shave off my mustache if we don't win those states? >> if you don't win minnesota, michigan, pennsylvania, but i will grow a mustache if you win florida and north carolina. how is that? is that a deal? >> florida and/or north carolina? >> and/or north carolina? all right. wow. >> it was great doing business with you. after the election you aren't going to have that much to talk about so people can tune in every day and watch your mustache grow. >> okay. i can't grow one -- >> i'm going to ask you three questions at once since you're a

former journalist you'll answer all three. independents in ohio, number one, do you think they're ahead amongst independents in ohio today? two, do you think you'll win independents in hiohio on electn day overall in the final tally and, finally, do you think the winner of ohio will win independents? >> uh -- >> i think we are ahead. >> there's never one question. it's always a three-part question. >> three pronged. >> are you ahead? >> i think we will win with independents in ohio. >> and, therefore, you think the winner will win with independents because you think you're going to win? >> yeah. >> why do you think so many polls in ohio and in other states and nationally show the president ahead or even but with governor romney winning independents? >> i can't speak to that but, you know, in the data that i see

we're doing well with independents and part of it, mark, is how polls are conducted and how people identify themselves, you know, in the polls. i think when we get to election day that people who are genuinely independent i think are going to break slightly our way in these battleground states. that's the data that i'm looking at. that's what i believe. obviously we're going to do very, very well with democrats but we're getting the break on independents as well. and that's why we're competitive in all these states. >> and, by the way, speaking of polls just looking on my twitter feed, public policy polling has a new poll out, iowa today. it's two numbers look familiar this morning, 50% to 45%, barack obama leading mitt romney. 50% to 45%. it's the same number we saw today in ohio. some people will note that ppp is a democratic polling outfit. i will note it was one of the most accurate in 2010 and i

usually find it to be accurate. john heilemann -- >> and, again, joe, on iowa let me just say in the early vote our feeling is that we're running 15 to 18 points ahead on the early vote and 45% to 50% of people will vote before election day. that's a big hill to climb for the other side. >> david, it's john heilemann here. i'm interested about president clinton. i've said on the show we thought romney ad on the auto ads they're running in ohio are a sign of desperation. is it not right to at this moment when president obama is not out on the campaign trail, president clinton is the major surrogate you have going, the fact he was in minimnesota, is that is not a sign that you guys are concerned about minnesota the fact that you are up on the air in michigan now or on the air in pennsylvania? are those not reasonable indicators that you think those states are actually in play?

>> no. it is reasonable to assume that we're being prudent about those states, that we're not going to take anything for granted. and we have the resources and we set aside resources so if they went into states, we would go into states. i think that's smart politic. it's not a sign of desperation or a tremendous amount of concern. but we'd be foolish to just allow them to spend millions and millions of dollars in the states and not do anything. we have the resources we need in those main battleground states and we've set aside some money for just this contingency and wherever they went we were going to go and that's the way we are going to play it from now until next tuesday. >> all right. so another ppp poll just posted and a wisconsin poll shows barack obama leading mitt romney 51% to 46%, a five-point lead. we certainly have seen that in the midwest states. the breaking news -- to recap,

if mitt romney wins either minnesota, michigan, or pennsylvania, come on "morning joe" and shave it. you can shave it. i'm not going to touch it. and if barack obama wins florida or north carolina, i will grow on "morning joe." >> ever had a mustache? >> i will get a guitar out and i will sing. >> have you ever had a mustache? >> no. >> and what happens in my mind right now -- >> we can glue david's mustache on your face. >> okay. >> david axelrod, it's been disgusting. >> it's grow your own. >> i'll talk to you later. thanks. up next -- >> thank you, david. >> patricia cornwell joins us. keep it here on "morning joe."

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patricia cornwell, with the tivo premier dvr you would get episodes of those episodes in a moment's notice. no one finds you like tivo. here with us now patricia

cornwell, she is out now with her 20th book. >> wow. >> wow. that's exciting. "the bone bed." congratulations on many levels. >> thank you. it's really been fun. she has been out there 22 years now. that's kind of hard to believe. >> unbelievable, 20th book. >> we'll talk about what happens. what's the setup for this one? >> this one is unusual. it started with some friends of mine, donna and danny aykroyd calling me a year and a half ago saying we're going on a dino dig, do you want to go? how do you say no to that? we went off into alberta, canada, and dug up 70 million-year-old dinosaur bones, and i said, i have to do something with this for my next book. so basically what happens is you have a paleontologist who vanished from a dinosaur dig in canada and scarpetta back in massachusetts gets a weird e-mail that has a terrible attachment and she knows something really bad has happened. the next thing she is rushing into the boston harbor on a lifeguard boat to recover a body

that's been diabolically tethered underwater, tangled with a sea creature. and then all hell breaks loose. >> give us background on the character. >> scarpetta is a forensic pathologist but is a forensic sleuth because she is an expert in pourencic science, she does all the latest, greatest technology for solving crimes using science and medicine, but she is also a little bit of a sherlock. she has great deductive abilities, a woman's intuition. she is a wonderful italian cook. and she's married to an fbi profiler so scarpetta uses her mind really to solve cases that are almost impossible for everybody else. >> and what accounts for her longevity, for the fact people remain so intrigued by this character? >> i think people just really like her. she is a likeable person. i mean, she -- if you met her at a party you might be afraid of

her. if you started talking to her, she would be accessible and interested in you. she is kind but she is a force to be reckoned with. she is who you want to call if something really bad happens. >> i might be afraid of her at first? >> i know because i write about her, she is so smart and i think even i would be a little intimidated because, god, this is like some genius. and she's really reserved. she is a reserved person. she has a very dry sense of humor. i know we're talking psychotic talk now. >> she always has this insider information that other people at the cocktail parties just aren't going to have. that, of course, goes to the fact that every time you write a novel, you dive in headfirst. you get as much information as you can. >> i do a lot of research. >> and so your lead character seems to be not only the smartest person in the room but anywhere. >> she really knows what she is doing.

she knows how to make silent witnesses speak to her, to make the dead tell her what happened, and what evidence to give her the back story or lead her in a certain direction. i think her best quality, and you'll see this in "the bone bed" is there's always that one little question that nobody wants to bother with. they think it's not important and she's not going to let it go and it always is the key that unlocks the big door. >> first of all, joe and i had a nickel for every time aykroyd called and said do you want to go on a dinosaur dig. >> it was fun when he came roaring out of the woods pretending to be a t-rex, by the way. >> when you write so specifically about science and about forensics, you can't fake that. you were talking about things that really happen in the world, and you have to really know what you're writing about. where does that interest come from, first, and how do you stay on top 0 of everything that's happening in that world? >> i think the interest comes from that i started out as a journalist and that's one of my proudest moments. i was a reporter right after college and from the get-go i

always wanted the answers everybody else didn't want to look for. i said there's a story here somewhere, and i'm going to find it. i still have that nonfiction approach when i do my research. and that's what makes the difference. ironically i'm not inately a scientific person. people think i am. i can't do math. i dropped chemistry after three days in college. i was an english major. so what i really am is somebody who investigates things and i'm able to translate them into a way, hopefully, that people can understand easily. >> but your characters don't look like they went to liberal arts schools. i mean, sometimes i look at all these "csi" shows and they have royalties because they really started with you. >> what scarpetta did when "postmortem" came out in 1990 made the world forensic medicine and high-tech investigations such as it was back then, she made it accessible to people.

and people said, wow, this is interesting. the instruments are mind withering. you have no idea what they're doing and you want to flee. you have to describe them in a way everyone can put their hands around. >> 20 books, huge following worldwide. quite an achievement. what motivates you to keep going? >> i love to write. i would be a lonely person if i didn't write. ever since i was a little kid, it's how i expressed myself. i keep myself company with it. and i just can't imagine not doing it. and i'm really happy to say that i still enjoy the series. i really enjoy spending time with scarpetta. she never ceases to interest mae and i learn something new all the time. i'm not bored. >> the book is "the bone bed." patricia cornwell, thank you so much. we'll be back with more "morning joe." patricia stepped out on the

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just tweeting about david axelrod promising to shave his mustache if the president loses pennsylvania or michigan. to drive the point down he only shaves the left half of his mustache. >> well, that would be an interesting fashion statement. >> that would be a bold move. >> much bolder than shaving the whole thing off although i don't think david has ever existed without a mustache since he was like 9 years old. >> no, he's had it for 40 years. to brian shactman.

brian, the stock exchange is going to reopen today. is that correct? >> reporter: we'll see what happens in 45 minutes, joe. thank you very much. they said they tested it extensively. the ceo just came on and said they were worried about connectivity. they think that's going to be okay but it's fascinating in 2012 they also said cell service is poor and they will rely heavily on land lines. so we'll see what happens in 45 minutes. i also want to touch on sandy's economic impact. you will see estimates ranging from $7 billion to $50 billion, guys. clearly you have to take it with a grain of salt. i don't care what the models are. nobody really knows what the cost of this is going to be for a while. the debate really that's going on is loss of business and property damage, how much, to what degree will that be offset by the stimulus of rebuilding? we don't know the impact there. and quickly, lost in all this news is a great story. disney bought lucas films 100% owned by george lucas for $4 billion. and, of course, he now is 2.2%

shareholder. and carl quintanilla and my favorite quip these are not the dwarfs you are looking for. i love that. >> that is fan ttastic. brian, thank you so much. we can't wait for star wars 7. we'll be right back. where others fail, droid powers through.

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>> what i should do is make a deal with you that you'll grow one if we win them. >> i will grow a mustache if you win florida and north carolina. how is that? is that a deal? >> florida and/or north carolina? >> florida and/or north carolina. all right. >> wow. >> that is funny stuff right there. >> i have an update. >> what's your update? >> this is what i learned today. susan axelrod immediately texted me. she said she will shave the mustache. oh, gross. i pray to god -- >> i think joe gets the worst. >> i look like freddie krueger there. >> a little bit -- >> that won't work well for you. >> i look like tony orlando. that is great. bus driver, please, look for me. >> i'm going to be sick. >>